


Divine Circulation

by 264feet



Series: The Form of a Goddess [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Drabble Collection, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fluff, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, mentions of dysphoria, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/264feet/pseuds/264feet
Summary: Moments lost to time, set during trans girl Byleth's time in Garreg Mach Monastery. Companion piece to 'The Form of a Goddess'.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Series: The Form of a Goddess [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046980
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	1. articulation (byleth & sothis)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sothis helps Byleth with voice training.

“Aaaaaa.”

“No, no. More like: aaahhHHHH,” Sothis says. 

Byleth slumps in her chair and sighs. “I never thought this would be so difficult.”

“I am again compelled to remind you that you requested this and that it is completely unnecessary.” Sothis likes to remind her of this fact every time she helps Byleth with feminine things.

“Let me guess. ‘I am a woman even if I do not have a very feminine voice’. That’s what you’re going to remind me, isn’t it?”

“How rude--”

“That’s a yes.” Byleth says. “Sothis, I know none of this is necessary. I believe that, on the inside, I was a girl even before I began this transition. Yet listening to my own voice now… frustrates me.”

Sothis nods sympathetically. “You wish to feel as if your body, including your voice, belongs to you. Your form should reflect your soul.”

Fortunately, Byleth’s voice never dropped too low during her first puberty. Still, listening to herself speak makes her feel like a man draped in a costume rather than a woman. There are days when she misses being a child and not saying more than three words a day to her father.

To alleviate this, she’s asked Sothis for voice training help as well as makeup and fashion help. Sothis isn’t sure how, but she has knowledge of how to modify one’s larynx and throat to change the quality of sound they produce. In exchange, Byleth is to question dozens of people in the marketplace tomorrow- especially the elderly- and ask if anyone at all can remember a time before Rhea was archbishop.

"You're doing well. You're a smart young woman, yet," Sothis says with a sly smile. It's shameless, really; just a bit of calling Byleth 'woman' or 'lady' perks her right back up. "This time, focus on not allowing your voice to drop down." 

"Understood."

The next several minutes involve the two of them mimicking 'aaaaah' sounds at one another. Surely anyone who walked in would have Byleth's mental acuity tested for sitting alone in her dorm making noises. Once they're in the correct range, Byleth speaks at length about random topics, such as the various animals she's seen around the monastery that day or how she suspects that Seteth never actually sleeps at night. "He's always awake," she says. "If you walk the courtyard at night, he's often just making his rounds--"

"Reset your voice," Sothis reminds her, gently. 

Byleth does so and picks up right where she left off. "-- trying to catch students sneaking out after curfew. I wonder if he takes a lot of naps during the day." 

"That was good. The content of your speech may be... questionable, but the quality of your voice has vastly improved." 

"Your help has paid off." 

Sothis hums. It's nice to be useful. She spends so much of the day watching as a silent observer, unable to participate in life as it goes on around her. Some days, she goads Byleth to go out and talk to strangers around the monastery just so she can hear their stories. To not only be acknowledged, but also _needed_ feels nice. Not that she would admit this to Byleth openly. 

“Let us take a break for today,” Sothis says. “The next time you give a lecture, I would like for you to continue focusing on the position of your larynx. A high larynx doesn’t necessarily correlate with pitch. I would also advice you to get an instrument, perhaps a nice lute. To use one’s voice to match the notes produced may be helpful.”

“You really are well-educated on this.”

“Perhaps I was a vocalist in the past?” Sothis allows herself a wistful look. “There is so much I do not know… I may feel like a stranger to myself as well, albeit for different reasons.”

“We’re going to figure it out.” Byleth tries to smile. It’s not very convincing; she’s still working on it. “Perhaps you’re like me and were born with a different form?”

“Perhaps.”

Byleth shifts her weight in the chair. One thing she’s taught herself is how to compress a certain body part of hers so she can wear tight clothing upon her legs if she must. “If I may ask--”

“No. You may not ask.” Sothis vanishes out of sight, only her voice remaining. “Cease your unnatural thoughts at once.”

“What’s in your pants, Sothis?” Byleth asks the empty air, teasingly. “The flow of time itself?”

Sothis takes back all the positive thoughts she just had about Byleth. “This conversation has ended.”

* * *

Each morning, they practice their voices together for the day. Byleth has become accustomed to carrying around her old waterskin; talking more femininely has a way of wearing out her voice. It's gradually becoming more natural, however. 

At the end of the week, she rushes to the marketplace to fulfill her end of the bargain. She uses the opportunity to practice something Sothis called ‘vowel intonation’. “Exc-u-se me mad- _aa_ -m,” Byleth asks, tapping a woman’s shoulder. “May _I_ ask of you--”

“Are you ill or something?” the woman asks. “Do not come near me.”

Sothis chuckles in the back of her mind. “I think you overdid it that time.”

“I dooo not know wh- _a_ -t you mean.”

After some questioning, Byleth takes a break. Nobody remembers a time before Rhea, and also, nobody has seen Seteth sleeping before. She makes a mental note to ask Flayn about it. For now, it's time to get a snack. She shies away from fresh fruit and buys yet another jar of pickles.

“That is the fourth time this week you have purchased pickles,” Sothis chides.

“Need salt,” says Byleth, through a mouthful of pickles.

As far as Anna the merchant had explained, the side effects of the estrogen hormones might include cravings like this. Also, she explained, she sells pickles now.

“That merchant woman is going to feminize the entire monastery just to push her pickle scheme,” Sothis grumbles.

“Do you think so?” Byleth asks, genuinely. “There must be at least one other person like me here, don’t you think?”

She looks around. Perhaps that lady was born as a boy. Maybe that man just has not realized his true form yet. Or maybe- weird as it sounds to her- there are people born and assigned ‘female’ who transition to be men.

“Statistically, it is probable,” Sothis replies. “You would not tell just by looking for most.”

“That’s a good thing, is it not?” There had been a strange in-between phase in which the other mercenaries slipped often on using ‘he’ or ‘she’. She still feels like she’s in that phase, but she rarely is gendered incorrectly these days. “Yet it makes it harder for us to group together and share our experience.”

“Perhaps, when you have mastered it, you should compile my knowledge into a book. You could use it as the basis for a seminar. I am sure that would draw some attention.”

Byleth imagines it. She stands in the front of the class, making cooing sounds. Caspar and Ferdinand eagerly coo back. In the corner, Hubert applies powder to his face. It hurts her that the thought of supposed young men acting in such a way would likely draw laughter from others.

Even if Byleth masters all of this ‘female’ stuff herself, the world has a long way to go to be welcoming and safe for people like her. She and Sothis will have to take it one step at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be updated sporadically! trans rights or die


	2. accolade (Byleth & Mercenaries)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth gets her first skirt.

Byleth’s reading in her tent when Felize strolls in like she owns the place. She’s one of her father’s mercenaries and one of the few female ones, best known for bludgeoning bandits and being the target of Byleth’s gender jealousy.

“Hey, lil’ boss,” she says. “Here.”

Felize proceeds to throw a skirt directly at Byleth’s face. It falls onto her lap. “If you need this mended, I’m waiting until after this contract is over with--”

“No, silly. It’s for you.”

She blinks. “Pardon?”

“A gift. For you. Ever had a gift before?”

Byleth holds it up. It’s a cloth skirt, a little worn, in a soft blue color. It looks like it would reach about her knee length.

Only about a week ago, she revealed the truth about her gender to the company. Most of the mercenaries had opted to ignore her since then, but they did that when they thought she was a boy, anyway. The more pressing matter is that they’ve been contracted to help put down a rebellion in a small Adrestian town on the border.

Byleth puts aside the book she had been reading and stands up. She thinks her light armor is fairly gender-neutral. Even though she’s a girl now, she doesn’t have to be overly feminine. A simple skirt won’t change her life.

She steps into the skirt and pulls it up over her shorts. The waistband snaps softly against her skin. The cloth of the skirt brushes her legs like a butterfly.

Something _clicks_. It’s like she’s been walking her whole life without knowing what shoes were. Her mouth hangs open in surprise as she admires herself from different angles.

“Go ahead, spin,” Felize says, her smile growing wider.

She does, and holy _shit._

The skirt _goes spinny._

A moment later, she’s twirling on her tiptoes imagining she’s a ballerina in Enbarr and Felize is laughing. “Don’t make yourself sick, now!”

Too late. She collapses; Felize dives in and catches her. “Careful there, girly, you’re going to--” Something something safety, something knock her head on the table and pass out the night before a battle. Byleth stopped listening after being addressed as ‘girly’.

Byleth doesn’t have a name for this feeling. It’s like looking at the sunrise. It reminds her… when she had been knee-high to her father, she accidentally fell out of her father’s canoe into the lake. She had sunk lower and lower and thought she would succumb to the darkness, only for her father’s strong hand to grab her and lift her out of the water a moment later. She had coughed up water and clung tight to him. It feels like that, but she’s been underwater for so long she forgot she ever _wasn’t_.

She remembers to speak, as she so rarely does. “Thank you!” Byleth says. “This is so special!”

“Uh-huh. I have more where that came from.”

“There’s more?!”

“Yep. How about a makeover?”

Later, Byleth would pinpoint it as the exact moment she began to believe in miracles.

* * *

Jeralt walks out of his tent to run a headcount on the mercs before dark. New recruits have been known to get nervous and run before their first actual battle, which can cause all kinds of problems. Last time, he spent an hour bargaining with some self-proclaimed warlord who held the sobbing deserter upside-down by his ankle the entire time. Completely botched the ambush.

After it seemed like the warlord wouldn’t accept anything less than blood, Byleth had suddenly grabbed the bow off Cerrik’s back, nocked an arrow, and fired it directly into the warlord’s heart. The deserter had been dropped onto his head, but was otherwise alright.

Emotions, the ‘what if’s and potential nightmares if the negotiation went sour, had clouded Jeralt’s mind. Byleth felt none of that. She had just acted based on cold calculations alone. It impressed Jeralt, but also frightened him.

He shakes the memory from his head. All the men are accounted for. He announces himself politely before heading into the women’s tent.

What he finds is Byleth sitting in a chair, face painted like a dancer from Brigid, with Grace tying bows into her hair while Felize painted her fingernails pink. Byleth is dressed in a skirt and blouse which rest overtop what appears to be a stuffed bra. The other women are nodding and offering encouragement. They all look up at Jeralt as if he had stomped in to church in the middle of a prayer.

“Uh…” he says. “Just checking, ladies.”

“I am fine,” Byleth says. Rather than a straight monotone, there’s a happy lilt to her voice. “Thank you.”

“Right. Have fun.” He walks back out.

Inside the tent, the women exchange a look and burst out laughing.


End file.
